Kevin Conley

ANNALS OF ENTERPRISE about professional poker player Erick Lindgren and the Five Diamond World Poker Classic… Writer visits Linddgren at his home in Las Vegas where another champion poker player, Daniel Negreanu was sitting on the couch reading a Swedish poker magazine. Lindgren had just lost $70,000 in a golf game. This was the last weekend before the World Series of Poker, which culminates in a week-long championship in no-limit Texashold-em, currently the most popular version of the game. Tells about the difficulties Lindgren had finding a trustworthy housekeeper. He often keeps thousands of dollars lying around his house… Poker is experiencing a cash boom that can be traced to developments in television and on the Internet. Tells about televised poker tournaments that use reality-show-editing to make the game look exciting and deceptively easy. Negreanu has won more than $6 million in tournament play. Lindgren compares poker to the stock market. “There’s more cheating and collusion in the stock market.” Discusses the differences between the older generation of poker players and the more suburban, clean-cut members of the current generation. Traces the origins of poker and of Texas hold ‘em. The World Poker Tour made its debut on the Travel Channel in 2003. Writer attends the Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio and traces the progress of Lindgren, Negreanu and Jennifer Harman through the tournament. Negreanu has started to view tournament footage the way football coaches do game tapes, tracking his findings on Excel spreadsheets. Negreanu is arguably the most respected tournament play of the last few years. Writer tells about Harman’s recovery from early difficulties in the tournament. Negreanu won the final. A few days after the tournament, he attended a charity hockey game where the fans were more interested in him than in the professional hockey players. “Wow, poker has arrived.”

ANNALS OF AMUSEMENT about extreme roller coasters and roller-coaster safety. The Top Thrill Dragster roller coaster, at Cedar Point amusement park, on Lake Erie, is 420 feet tall and reaches its maximum speed of 120 m.p.h. in less than 4 seconds. It’s one of a new generation of roller coasters that generate their own publicity by setting world records. Chains like Six Flags, the U.S.’s largest, with 29 parks, and Cedar Fair, which owns Cedar Point and 11 other parks, have been engaged in their own version of the arms race, putting up one big-ticket coaster after another. Cedar Point has become the most famous front in that war, but by some measures Six Flags is ahead, with 8 of the 20 fastest coasters in the country. Coaster enthusiasts are calling it a new golden age, but today’s high-speed steel coasters don’t have a lot in common with the old wooden ones. Joe Rohde, the design director at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom, excitedly discussed Expedition Everest, Disney’s new coaster, which will open in 2006 at a reported cost of $100 million. The big technological innovation on it is a high-speed track switch that allows it to come to a quick stop at the top and then careen backward on a different path. The country’s first roller coaster was the Switch Back Railway (one built in 1872 and another in 1884 by La Marcus Thompson, the first coaster entrepreneur). Then, in 1895, Paul Boynton built a whole series of coasters. Technical improvements, especially the addition of a safety bar, allowed for greater speed and sharper turns, and coaster construction exploded. By the late 1920s, there were more than 1500 wooden coasters. Harry G. Traver built many of them. In 1959, Disney introduced the first steel-track coaster, the Matterhorn Bobsleds. In 1975, the Corkscrew at Knott’s Berry Farm and Revolution at Six Flags Magic Mountain pioneered steel-loop technology. A preservation movement began in the late 1970s, spearheaded by the American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE). Mentions Lisa Scheinin. Richard Rodriguez has set world records for the longest coaster ride. How safe are roller coasters? From 1987 to 2000, an average of 4.5 riders died on amusement-park rides every year, according to the Consumer Protection Safety Commission (C.P.S.C.). But the picture is murkier for non-fatal injuries. In 1981, Pres. Reagan awarded “fixed-site” amusement parks freedom from federal oversight. The “roller-coaster loophole” remained largely unchallenged until a string of 4 fatal accidents in 1999 prompted Rep. Ed Markey to introduce a bill to return regulatory powers to the C.P.S.C. Meanwhile, the C.P.S.C. has no power to compel parks to file accident information. The agency only estimates injury rates using emergency-room reports submitted by a few hundred hospitals around the country. In 2000, the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (I.A.A.P.A.) successfully lobbied to get a hospital near Six Flags in New Jersey removed from the pool. The industry claims the rides are already governed by stringent standards set by the American Society for Testing and Materials, but these standards are voluntary. Kathy Fackler, a leading advocate of federal regulation, believes the industry has long known about the child-safety hazards of its rides. Peter Speth, another industry critic, claims that coasters with multiple loops and inversions subject the head to unprecedented sequences of “whipping and buffeting,” potentially causing tears in the network of fine veins that connect the brain to the dura, resulting, in rare cases, in subdural hematomas. But the doctors the writer contacted didn’t believe coasters posed a public-health threat. Greg Hale, chief safety officer for Walt Disney parks, confirmed that rides often debut with few or no trials using crash test dummies. Writer rides the Coney Island Cyclone, which was built in the late 1920s. Mentions Gerry Menditto, who runs the ride.

One measure of the success of the guests on the red carpet at the Taurus World Stunt Awards, at Paramount Studios the other day, was that nobody recognized them. Many stunt doubles, incredibly fit and generally as good-looking as, if not better than, the stars they double for, simply walked by a puzzled throng of Hollywood photographers. Naturally, there were a lot of limps: wincingly fresh ones, subtle stiff-legged chronic ones, bad-habit limps from old injuries, swaggering limps disguised by ball gowns and cowboy boots, and proud lifetime-achievement limps that seemed to incorporate a full halt in every step—double hip replacements.

THE SPORTING SCENE about University of Connecticut basketball player Diana Taurasi. The most identifiable profile in Connecticut belongs to Diana Taurasi, who plays basketball for the University of Connecticut Huskies. Since she joined the team, three and a half years ago, it has won 130 games–two for national championship–and lost only six. Taurasi–Dee to her teammates–is built for basketball (6 feet, 170 lbs., with long arms and fingers), and she excels at the game’s usually incompatible specialties (pass, shoot, block, steal, rebound). She won last year’s Naismith Award for America’s best female collegiate player and she ranks in the top 10 in the Big East in 8 of 12 statistical categories. But what makes her the best college basketball player ever, and the most sought-after prospect in the history of the W.N.B.A., are two qualities: her playground joy in the game and her last-minute dominance. It’s no accident that such talent wound up in Connecticut. The Huskies lead the nation in attendance and its entire schedule is televised. UConn’s head coach, Geno Auriemma, is the highest-paid coach in women’s college basketball. This year, the team is well positioned to win its 3rd straight championship. It’s in the close contests with the team’s strongest rivals, like the University of Tennessee Lady Vols, that you see how good Taurasi really is. Describes a game with Lady Vols in January, 2003, in which she hit both a 70-foot shot and a 3-point shot. When Taurasi decides to score, she does it so easily you wonder why she doesn’t score more. Her signature shot is the 3-pointer; she can shoot it from so far behind the line it still surprises people. She’s is an exceptional scorer, but an even better passer, and her quick reads of the chaos on court can be startling. In this respect, she’s like her childhood hero, Magic Johnson. Don Antonio Lugo High School, Taurasi’s alma mater, is half a block from her childhood home, in Chino, California. In early December, the Don Lugo girls’ squad traveled to Santa Monica to see Taurasi play against Pepperdine. Mentions Diana’s mother, Liliana, and father, Mario–both Argentinian. They settled in Chino in 1979 and Diana was born in 1981. She was picked out as a prodigy by coaches on the Southern California basketball circuit before she was 12. While in junior high school, she played on an Amateur Athletic Union all-star squad called SoCal Women’s Basketball, winning awards and championships. Taurasi began playing for UConn in the fall of 2000. There, she was playing against teammates better than she was. Within months, however, the Huskies lost their 2 top scorers to injuries. In her first N.C.A.A. tournament in March, 2001, Taurasi took on the burden of scoring until the team reached the Final Four; UConn lost. In her sophomore year, UConn had a perfect season, leading to a championship game against Oklahoma in March, 2002; the Huskies won, thanks to Taurasi. In her junior year, Taurasi made a collection of inexperienced underclassmen nearly undefeatable, and the Huskies extended their unbeaten streak for 31 more games–the record in women’s basketball and the second-longest winning streak in N.C.A.A. history. The official opening of Taurasi’s final season with the Huskies came at an exhibition called Supershow, on the UConn campus. Mentions UConn teammates Ann Strother and Barbara Turner. After the show, Taurasi sat for several hours signing jerseys, programs, t-shirts, etc. Notes her lighthearted temperament. She is a 21-year-old athlete and sociology major who never stops moving. On December 3rd, the Phoenix Mercury won first pick in the W.N.B.A.’s draft lottery. Chances are high that they will pick Taurasi, whose “killer instinct” they like. Talks about low W.N.B.A. salaries and attendance. But some believe a talented player could change the fortune of the league. The W.N.B.A. is also looking to increase its profile in the Latin market. Describes the Huskies’ game against Duke’s Blue Devils, on January 3rd, which Duke won. The following weeks were rough and UConn fell to No. 4 in the national rankings. Claims Duke revealed the team’s weaknesses: that they were slow and depended too much on Taurasi. Describes a later game against the Tennessee Lady Vols, which the Huskies won. By the end of February, they’d regained the No. 1 ranking.

“What’s your problem?” Joanny D’Amico says by way of greeting to a blond woman in a snow-white coat by the open barrels of coffee beans. “What do you need? What? What?” From 7:30 a.m. to the dinner hour, the owners of this third-generation coffee shop keep moving through their onetime superette, from the sandwich counter to the espresso machine, from the oven in back to the big red roaster by the door, grinding beans and chatting with the different shifts of neighborhood coffee drinkers—the librarian and the longshoremen and the O.T.B. guys, the St. Ann’s Latin teacher with the Botticelli tattoo, the proprietors of the Chic Elegance salon next door, the mothers parked by their strollers and nursing their babies and their cappuccinos.

During a working vacation in the French Riviera, Andy D’Amico, the chef at the old Sign of the Dove, and Simon Oren, the owner of L’Express and French Roast, came up with the idea for a sunny restaurant on the Upper West Side that would mix the strong flavors of Southern France with a mostly walk-in approach.

ANNALS OF FILMMAKING about Hollywood stunts and stuntmen. Since the days of the Keystone Kops, Hollywood stuntmen have called the dangerous stunts they do “gags.” In late August, the writer observed a fire gag for the film “The Punisher,” about a Marvel Comics superhero, which took place on a long pier just outside St. Petersburg, Florida, in Fort De Soto Park. Mike Owen, a stunt double, prepared for the gag. He wore three layers of fire-protective Nomex long underwear, which had been soaking in a cooler. In addition, his face and hair were slathered in a gel that protects from burns. The explosion would be the climax of an extended chase scene, which would take about a minute of screen time, but required a week of shooting. In addition to the fire gag, there was a series of car jumps, an S.U.V. rollover, and a tricky car crash. Gary Hymes, the second-unit director, had choreographed the entire stunt sequence. As Owen rehearsed the fire gag, he and the film’s director, Jonathan Hensleigh, discussed the scene’s narrative elements. Hensleigh wanted Owen to recoil as the fire closed in. The crew positioned two propane-filled canisters so they were aimed directly at Owen. The fireball was set to flare at the same moment that a cable would jerk Owen off his knees and toss him into the Gulf of Mexico. Owen had been rehearsing all week. Hensleigh’s assistant yelled, “Let’s go hot on stunts,” and the tongue of fire raced across the dock and hit Owen full in the face as the cable jerked him up into the sky and out into the water. The director yelled, “Cut!” and two safety divers swam over to Owen, who surfaced and gave a thumbs-up sign. The first stuntmen were extras, circus clowns, acrobats, prizefighters, rodeo riders, etc. Mack Sennett’s Keystone Kops comedies featured numerous gags by “slapstick specialists.” After WWI, the studios churned out low-budget Westerns, which turned Yakima Canutt into a silent-movie action hero. In the ensuing decades, Canutt made technical improvements that became standard practice. Due to his efforts, the second-unit director became the chief figure on the set in charge of stunts and spectacle. Second-unit directors have grown in importance since the 1960s, but their work is largely unheralded. On the set of a big action film like “The Punisher,” however, the director often stands quietly while the second-unit director vets the big-money scene. Complex gags are planned and storyboarded weeks in advance. In August, the writer visited the pre-production offices of “Cellular,” to watch the director, David Ellis, and his second-unit director, Freddie Hice, plan a chase scene. In the scene, the young hero is speeding across L.A. in a Ford Bronco. They discuss the moment when he recklessly veers into oncoming traffic. They decide they need a “zhoom-zhoom”––an swerve into traffic followed by a hasty retreat. They wanted to avoid a “cliché shot,” so they decide on an over-the-shoulder shot of a stunt double in the Bronco smashing into a garbage rig. For the stuntman, the crash would be worth $1500 per take, in addition to his Screen Actors Guild day rate of $678. A few days later, the writer returned to the set of “The Punisher” to observe the boat gag. The original script had left the scene vague, so Hymes had invented nearly the whole sequence. When the Chevy Blazer carrying the Punisher’s wife and son runs over a large bump on the trail, the trailer hitch connecting the motorboat to the car will break free, hurling it into the air. The hit men chasing them will then crash into the boat. Hymes is a former stuntman and former champion motorcross racer. Most stuntmen nowadays are ex-motorcyclists or ex-X-Gamers and ex-renegade sporters (i.e., snowboarding, cliff diving, etc.). Hymes’s father was one of the original stuntmen at the Sennett studios. A hefty percentage of stuntmen are born into it. Mentions Hymes’s baby did a stunt in “The Untouchables.” For the Punisher shoot, Hymes plotted camera angles, timing, and possible outcomes. Just when the Blazer hit the bumps, a crew member would press a detonator and a charge of primer cord would detach the boat from the S.U.V. Hymes went over the scene with Donna Evans, the stunt double for the wife, and Sean Graham, the hit-man stunt double. Graham, a former cliff diver and extreme snowboarder, is one of 300 or so stuntpeople who work steadily and earn several hundred thousand dollars a year; he’s also one of the industry’s top wheelmen, whose specialty is the high fall. He says you’re more likely to die from mistakes than daring. Describes the gag shoot. Hymes yelled “Action!” into a walkie-talkie and the stunt began. The boat went airborne, but then, surprisingly, came slamming down on the truck, hitting the hood and windshield at the same instant; the Ford hurtled into the boat’s keel… This gag was nothing to celebrate; it’s the difference between one spectacular thing going right and many little ones not going horribly wrong. Several camera angles made the stunt look slow and humdrum. Mentions one angle which showed how close the boat came to the stunt double’s head. Hymes had the script supervisor record that shot as the print.

Montrachet, a sure thing on any short list of New York’s most romantic restaurants, opened in April, 1985. Seven weeks later, it received a three-star review from the Times, and the crowds headed down to its then-ungentrified Tribeca location. A hefty percentage got lost. “It was like Lamaze,” Tracy Nieporent, a partner in the venture with his brother Drew, remembers. “People walked in and you could see they were under duress. It was our job to soothe them.” The storefront hideaway, which set the standard for a generation of unpretentious American takes on French cuisine, led to a restaurant empire (the Myriad Restaurant Group, which owns eight places in three cities and counting) that left the brothers little time to tinker with the peculiar low-key attractions of the original.

William Clifton France, the seventy-year-old patriarch of the family that owns NASCAR, the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing, is not the richest man in sports: Paul Allen, Mark Cuban, and Wayne Huizenga, all of whom bought athletic teams after becoming wealthy, have more money. France, however, is the richest man from sports. His personal fortune, estimated by Forbes to be a billion dollars, comes entirely from auto racing. Bill, Jr., as he is known, would rather not say that he owns NASCAR—he prefers to say that he is the ‘‘steward’’ of the sport—but the distinction is lost on most people. The sport could go on without France and his family, but only if they sold it.

For many New Yorkers, the lack of any countryside to speak of is more than redeemed by the accompanying absence of country clubs. Many restaurants try to fill this vacuum, but none does it so well as Harry Cipriani, which has provided diners with an almost nostalgic sense of not belonging since 1985. The cozy room in the Sherry Netherland, with its gold-stitched linen curtains, is generally bustling, but still intimate enough to overhear the elegant Indian woman exchanging phone numbers with Denise Rich, the waiter shouting in Spanish that they’ve run out of sport coats, the general manager letting a couple know that a Venetian count has taken care of their check.